Science Meetings

In today's post I want to spend some more time on what goes on in our after lunch science meetings. We get together in the ship's library to discuss the previous day's dive and the science that is collected from it during the night before. Yes, this is a 24-hour per day operation. Once the samples have been brought up, they are immediately brought into the laboratory where the real work begins.

The science meeting begins with a detailed account of the previous dive. You can take a closer look at one of the reports by clicking on this link.

This presentation is accompanied by highlight pictures taken using "frame grabber" on the computer. These come from the hours of video that are shot during each dive. You can match up the pictures to actual time and latitude/longitude coordinates.

Here is a sampling of some of the most interesting of the clips. (Actually, they are all fascinating! I just can't post them all here.) They are from a collection of reports. The vent locations are listed - see my map of the area on a previous post.

This is another view of a mussel bed and a healthy Riftia patch. As the water chemistry changes, the Riftia gradually get pushed out of the habitat by the mussels. Its a dog eat dog world on the ocean bottom!

Here is a picture of how Riftia are collected. They are attached to the bottom with a biological adhesive that they produce. They don't stand a chance against ALVINs manipulator arm. The biologists dissect them in the lab shortly after being brought up. Transit is the term we use to describe moving from one vent site to another. Some are longer transits while some are very short. The transit from Q-vent to Tica is about 0.4 nautical miles, but the transit from Tica to Bio-9 is only about 100 meters.

I showed you dissection photos of Alvinella in an earlier post. They are the first colonizers to a new vent opening, eventually being replaced by Riftia. Here is a photo of what they look alike alive:

This is an example of basalt flow that has cooled in the form of a wall about 10 meters tall.

Our microbe biologists are interested in any mat that can be seen, like the blue-white material resembling a water fall. These are microbes that have colonized an area where there is diffuse vent flow.

They use a slurp to try to pick up samples of these colonies. Other techniques that they employ are using mesh screens that allow the microbes to form colonies on like the one used below:

We plan on picking this mesh screen up soon in the next few days.

I am mostly involved in the chemical analysis work involving the major samplers. Here we used 5 samplers to collect vent water at different points along a plume to 1 meter. The numbers represent the temperature of each sample collected. Once they are brought up, they are drained for chemical analysis, then cleaned thoroughly, washed, dried, and reassembled for the next day. Whew! That takes many hours.

Tica is the central location of the East Pacific Rise for vent activity. We left markers from the University of Delaware and the Odtu Metu University of Turkey representing the major scientists working on this expedition.

We are in an area that doesn't see much research activity. The last group that was here was in 2009. Dr. Luther's last visit was in 2007. These markers where put down today.

After the presentation, other scientists present data and findings to the entire group. Usually the work done generates new proposals in new directions of study. It is really something to be on the cutting edge of scientific research. Data collected here will be used for scientific papers once we get home. I will share some examples of these in tomorrow's blog.

First, I wanted to give you access to a sample presentation by the scientists working on studying manganese and its interaction with the hydrothermal vent ecosystem. You can click on this link - you can view the powerpoint.

The meetings last about 1-2 hours, then its back to work until 5:00 PM. That is when the ALVIN comes up and we start the whole process all over again!

The ALVIN is loaded back into the hanger and then we descend on the scientific finds like vultures! Major samplers go to specific labs, biological samples go to other labs on the ship, and even the geology has its own study area.

This is basalt rock covered with obsidian glass. The obsidian forms when hot lava from a volcanic eruption meets cold sea water. The rapid cooling forms the glass, like a scab forms over a cut, allowing the basalt to form slowly underneath.

The obsidian is very sharp (like glass) and we have all cut our fingers when we were not careful. I have several pieces that I will be bringing home to show everyone. It is beautiful!

You can really see the basalt layer underneath in this picture:

This rock weighed about 40 pounds!

So what are we going to do with all of these rocks? The scientist from the University of Hawaii on board has a group back at his university that studies basalt and the age of volcanic eruptions. It is possible to date when this eruption occurs using the half life of polonium-210, a radioactive isotope that occurs naturally in basalt. It has a half-life of only 39 days, making it ideal to date recent volcanic eruptions.

After we get everything going in the laboratories and have everything loaded on the ALVIN for the next dive day, it is well into the early morning hours. We only get a couple hours sleep, then we are back at it again early the next morning. The ALVIN dives at 8:00AM!